Who can forget that kind, passionate and yet too innocent face from the first series of Indian Idol? Meiyang Chang may not have won that contest but he did win many hearts and even today he continues on his spree as an actor.

Apart from his wonderful voice and acting skills he also has a flair for writing. He may have not given it a fair amount of attention but the fact that he writes amazingly on his blog @ http://buddhasoliloques.blogspot.com/ isn’t in anyways untrue. His words have a strange mix of wisdom, passion and maturity. But one thing is for sure his blogs exemplifies wisdom.

He was kind to answer a couple of questions posed to him by our Editor-in-chief, U. Mahesh Prabhu. Here are few excerpts…

Can you let us have a brief about your family background?

I come from a family of Dentists and Beauticians originally hailing from Hu-bei province in China. My forefathers came to India in the early 1800’s, seeking refuge from the oppressive communist policies of China at the time. In the bargain, they found a new home and a country that viewed them with some skepticism early on but eventually embraced them. Ever since, my grandparents, parents and I have lived in India and are proud Indian citizens

How did you feel when you heard of the word ‘Blog’?

Initially, I didn’t see the sense of putting my thoughts out there in cyberspace. I mean, blogging is like keeping a personal diary. Only, it isn’t personal at all and is out there for all to see. Over time, my perception about blogging changed and I tried getting the balance right – personal without divulging secrets or dropping names and informative without getting preachy. It’s a learning curve.

Who introduced you to blogging?

A dear friend and a fellow Dentist, who herself is a fine blogger, Dr. Madhulika Naidu, who, incidentally also introduced me to social networking sites in 2006.

You write very fluently, have you been trained in literature?

Trained in literature? Ha ha. Heavens, no! I attribute my writing to a good base in English grammar in my childhood and a love for reading developed since my teenage years

You are also an actor. Can you let me know something about your movie with Pritish Nandy production?

“The Seventeens” by Guerilla Flicks, PNC is an interesting and dark take on the psyche of the city teens of today, who’ve been brought up in a world of privileges and take virtually everything for granted. In this scenario, friendship & relationships take on meanings very different from that prescribed by purists. How status, money & impatience wreak havoc in the lives of these teenagers is what “The Seventeens” is all about.  I play Ashu, a disconnected, uninterested teen who speaks little and has more virtual friends than real as he’s heavily into gaming. Consequently he believes that life is like a video game, where everything is “fixable”, “reparable “or “redeemable”. Only when something tragic and drastic happens in his life is when he gets jolted back to the real world

I am currently shooting for a yet untitled Yash Raj Film with Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Vir Das. This movie tells the light hearted and sometimes painful tale of the rise, fall and redemption of four friends. I play Tenzing, a boy from Sikkim who has a lot bottled up inside him, yet he always has a smile on his face. He experiences the typical identity-crisis faced by people from the North-East who’ve moved to other parts of India for education or work and who, in spite of being truly Indian may never be considered as one. Tenzing’s character has shades of grey, which is what attracted me as it is the absolute anti-thesis of what I am.  It gives me the opportunity to acid-test my acting skills as well as break away from my “jolly cute-boy” image

You have a great readership base. How did you promote your blog?

I’m glad people like what I write, but I have never promoted my blog. Two years ago, I did quite well for myself as a contestant on Indian Idol. The overnight fanfare & popularity meant that a blog that was intended to be read by friends, family and like-minded bloggers was being googled for and advertised by word-of-mouth by well-wishers & admirers. The kind of positive feedback that I get on what I write and the manner in which I pen it down is more gratifying than any adulation I have received so far.

How frequently do you blog?

I like to take my own sweet time to form the proper skeleton and the aimed-for perfection in the sprinkling of most effective words & phrases in the right places. This means that one post could take me anywhere from half an hour to a few days to a few months. I’m quite like an author & an editor when it comes to blogging. Given my current work schedule, I admit with some sadness that my frequency of blogging has dropped alarmingly. There was a time when I was blogging every single day!

What does blogging mean for you today?

Blogging surely has come a long way. Not anymore is it only about penning the ongoing in your mind about issues, thoughts, knowledge and information, it has re-cultivated the love for reading. Before the invention of the audiovisual media, reading was one of the major hobbies: a good habit which lost some steam to other modes of entertainment. Today, a blog is no lesser than any other media if reading is one of your passions, be it on a variety of topics. If not, then more often than not it’s a good read and a mirror to the unimaginable pool of creativity out there.

Your take on life

To borrow an oft-quoted phrase, “”Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Unpredictable, fun, amusing and amazing. That’s life. And none of us would like it any other way.